Variations

In folklore and fiction, magic takes many forms. In some settings, the logic of magic may be difficult to simulate using the standard magic system; in others, there may be multiple coexisting types of magic. This chapter introduces a variety of ways to tweak and extend the GURPS Magic system to encompass a variety of possibilities.

If further magical possibilities are of interest, GURPS Fantasy discusses many more exotic theories of magic and how to use them in GURPS.

Perhaps the simplest way to expand the range of magical possibilities is to adjust the parameters of the standard system, changing how spells are used or acquired. By changing the way people learn spells, or the circumstances under which they can use them, a GM can achieve a different flavor of magic while retaining the utility of the standard spell list.

In some worlds, holy men and women receive magical abilities from the powers they serve. Such powers can be handled using the standard magic system, with a few minor alterations.

Clerical spells have no prerequisites. A priest may acquire a new spell any time he has points to spend, simply by praying for it; teachers and study are unnecessary (though GMs might permit a priest to put a point in a new spell after 200 hours of devout contemplation). However, each god’s priesthood is restricted to an abbreviated list of spells that the god will grant, usually closely tied to the god’s portfolio; fire gods don’t grant Essential Water. Also, the patron god may decide to alter the effects of the magic he grants – or suspend a priest’s magical abilities altogether – for reasons as ineffable as one comes to expect from a deity.

Clerical spellcasters often possess Clerical Investment (p. B43) and Religious Rank (p. B30); indeed, some religions require such traits before a priest may learn clerical spells. However, other faiths include individuals who wield divine powers without belonging to the formal church hierarchy. Clerical spellcasters are often required to take a Discipline of Faith (p. B132) to maintain their powers.

See Devotional Enchantment, p. 71, for a related form of magical practice.

Clerical magic does not depend upon mana, but upon a mechanically similar property called “sanctity,” which represents the level of influence a deity possesses in an area. Sanctity levels range from “no sanctity” to “very high sanctity,” much as mana does; however, sanctity levels are specific to a particular god, and more responsive to human alteration. Most areas are normal sanctity; duly consecrated places, however, are high-sanctity zones for the appropriate god’s worshippers, and low sanctity for worshippers of an enemy god.

A fuller treatment of sanctity and holy places can be found in GURPS Fantasy.

Magery is irrelevant to clerical magic. Instead, Magery’s role is filled by the Power Investiture (p. B77) advantage. Spells that normally require some level of Magery require Power Investiture when granted by a god.

Since sanctity is mechanically equivalent to mana, clerical spellcasters without Power Investiture cannot cast clerical spells when outside an area with high sanctity. Priests with Power Investiture, however, can carry their patron deity’s work into the larger normal-sanctity world.

Much as mages can detect changes in mana level (p. 6), clerical spellcasters with Power Investiture can detect changes in sanctity level by rolling against IQ + Power Investiture.

The regular spell system offers another alternative for priestly magic. Individuals who are good and pure of heart may buy certain spells without prerequisites. The relevant spells are ones that permit the caster to perform supernatural acts traditionally associated with the clergy. These spells include Bless, Dispel Possession, Final Rest, Monk’s Banquet, Turn Zombie, and Vigil.

In some worlds, magic is not divided into hundreds of individual procedures by which a wizard can bring the dead to life but know nothing of speaking to birds. Instead, magic is a single practice, dizzying in its many applications but essentially one.

In such settings, magic use depends on a single “core skill,” typically Ritual Magic (p. B218) or Thaumatology (p. B225). Each college of magic is an IQ/Very Hard “college skill” or “path” that defaults to core skill at -6. College skills have the core skill as a prerequisite and may never exceed the core skill.

Ritual wizards can cast spells at default! Each spell is a Hard technique with a default to the associated college skill. The default is at a penalty equal to the spell’s prerequisite count (p. 6). To raise a spell past its default level, the wizard must have at least one point in the college skill, but he can ignore the spell’s prerequisites under the standard system. Spells cannot exceed the associated college skill. Magery adds to core skill, college skills, and spells. If standard and ritual magic coexist, normal Magery and Ritual Magery are separate advantages.

All other rules are the same.

The core skill for ritual magic must be a Very Hard skill for the sake of game balance, but fascinating opportunities emerge when you look for alternative candidates. Some Very Hard skills are obvious choices, as they already verge in the mystic – Alchemy or Herb Lore, for example. Musical Influence, similarly, is a clear choice for bardic magic. Almost any Very Hard skill, however, can be a potential core skill for ritual magic.

In a setting where magic is the final mystery of martial arts or monastic discipline, skills like Body Control, Blind Fighting, Invisibility Art, or Zen Archery can be become the first step in ritual magic.

In a more technologically advanced setting, Computer Hacking or Weird Science become core skills. This is excellent for cyberpunk campaigns, “the world is an illusion” settings, or over-the-top technomagic shenanigans.

Ritual magic can even be based on mundane sciences. Ritual physicists exploit subtle and counterintuitive principles of natural law to accomplish their magic. Paradigms based on Biology or Surgery are left as an exercise for the reader.

In most situations, the prerequisites given for spells in this book make sense. However, the cosmologies of some settings might be better supported by a different structure. Perhaps the GM wants the Technological spells to depend upon a background in Making and Breaking, or would like to remove the Necromantic taint associated with Resurrection in the normal spell list. Perhaps the group prefers wizards with a handful of powerful spells instead of a long list of spells of varying power.

Changing the prerequisites of a spell can be difficult to do without unbalancing the spell; if anyone off the street can learn Great Wish, a lot of folks with big dreams and great cosmic powers will start turning up. However, if the GM is willing to take a bit of time, it’s possible to tweak a spell’s prerequisites without wreaking havoc on the game world.

The Spell Table (pp. 223-237) includes a column marked “Prerequisite Count.” This column represents the shortest chain of prerequisites required to learn the spell in question. A prerequisite count of five means that there are five other spells which a wizard must learn before he can learn that spell. The GM may wish to consider non-spell prerequisites (Magery, IQ, etc.) when calculating prerequisite count; if so, add one point to a spell’s prerequisite count for every 10 full character points of required traits. The Spell Table does not consider non-spell prerequisites.

To alter a spell’s prerequisite chain, come up with some plausible set of requirements that adds up to roughly the same prerequisite count. This isn’t an exact science; changing the prerequisite count of Utter Dome from 16 to 5 might be problematic, but if the new prerequisite chain adds up to 14, the campaign is hardly going to be ruined.

Some worlds have fewer low-powered spells than others, and a wizard can learn powerful magic without having mastering dozens of less potent incantations. One possible way to simulate this situation is to cut all prerequisite counts in half and simultaneously double the points required for a spell to serve as a prerequisite. So, a wizard trying to learn Steam Jet might need to spend two points each on five different spells rather than one point each on 10 different spells.

In other worlds, magic reflects more strongly the sort of person a spellcaster is, and less what he’s studied. One way to make a prerequisite chain reflect this sort of world is to lean heavily on advantages as prerequisites. Demand that Plant wizards have Plant Empathy for certain spells, or that Communication wizards have some Charisma. Any number of Talents make good prerequisites – Artificer for Making and Breaking, Smooth Operator for Mind, and so on.

The names given in this book are generally descriptive and functional, for ease of use. There’s no reason that they also have to be the names that wizards use for them in the game world. There are dozens of ways to rename spells to help them conform to your game world’s flavor.

Different Phrasing: Something as simple as changing a spell’s part of speech can make an important difference in flavor. Fireball becomes Ball of Fire, Seek Earth becomes Search for Earth, etc.

Named for its Creator: In worlds where spell research is an ongoing concern, wizards concerned with self-promotion will want their spells to enhance their reputations directly. Why develop Weather Dome when you can develop Malathrax’s Weather Dome?

Technical Nomenclature: Sometimes wizards just like to keep the untrained guessing. The Seventeenth Chant of Air sounds very impressive, even if it’s just Odor.

Florid Prose: Create Fire pales before the Most Excellent Pyrogenitive Incantation. In an appropriately baroque setting, every spell can be improved with the indiscreet use of Latin and a few superfluous adjectives.

Improvisation is the heart of roleplaying. Players improvise to react to unexpected situations that the GM throws to them, and the GM improvises to accommodate the… innovative… solutions the players devise. This sort of freewheeling improvisation can be the basis of a game’s magic system as well.

Not every setting features wizards who spend long hours to learn and master individual spells with clearly defined effects. The systems presented in this section offer the opportunity for wizards to cast spells without years of study and memorization; in some cases, they allow wizards to invent new spells at their whim. These systems may exist alongside the regular spell system, or replace it, as appropriate for a given setting.

A word of warning: improvisational systems are only appropriate for groups where the GM enjoys thinking on his feet, and the players are happy to accept GM judgments on the fly. Some GMs don’t enjoy being put on the spot, and some players prefer to know exactly what their characters are capable of doing. If that describes you, skip these systems.

Any system described in this section may or may not require Magery, depending on the world in which they exist. They may, as with spell magic, require Magery to use in a region with normal or lower mana. They may require Magery to use at all.

The simplest way to handle improvising wizards is the Wild Talent advantage (p. B99). A paradigm of magic in which wizards devise new spells extemporaneously is easily simulated by some level of Wild Talent with the Focused limitation.

In combination with the Retention enhancement, Wild Talent becomes a means by which wizards learn new spells; at the GM’s option, it may not even be possible to learn spells through study. Without Retention, a wizard’s level of Wild Talent becomes the limiting factor for his spellcasting.

Adding the Emergencies Only limitation can be a great incentive for wizards to go adventuring; with Emergencies Only and Retention, a wizard can only learn new spells by putting himself in new and dangerous situations.

Magic can also be treated as a wildcard skill (p. B175) to emulate settings where wizards master the full spectrum of magical endeavor instead of learning one spell at a time. Instead of buying spells, a wizard simply buys levels of Magic! With that single wildcard skill, he can cast any spell he wants, at a penalty equal to the spell’s prerequisite count.

This is a cinematic option. Wizards using Magic! are extremely flexible and powerful. If the scope of Magic! seems too broad, it may be wise to treat each college as a separate wildcard skill. The GM may also want to retain Magery prerequisites for spells that usually require some level of Magery.

Another way to allow wizards to attempt spells outside their comfort zone is to allow spells to default to other spells (p. B173). In this system, each spell defaults to every other spell in the same college. An unknown spell defaults to any known spell at -4, with an additional penalty equal to its own prerequisite count. However, if the known spell is in the prerequisite chain of the unknown spell, add a bonus equal to the prerequisite count of the known spell. A wizard cannot cast a spell at default if it requires an advantage (usually Magery) that he does not possess. When defaulting to a spell at skill 20 or higher, treat the spell level as 20 for default purposes.

Spells cast at default cost twice as much energy and take twice as long to cast.

Example: Patrick wants to cast Lend Language on his friend Aidan to help him pass the Old Draconic midterm, but his only Communication and Empathy spells are Sense Foes-15 and Sense Emotion-15. He can cast Lend Language at a base penalty of -4, with an additional penalty of -3 for Lend Language’s prerequisite count. Since Sense Emotion is a possible prerequisite for Lend Language, he can add Sense Emotion’s prerequisite count for a +1 bonus. He could also have defaulted from Sense Foes, but since Sense Foes has no prerequisites, he would not have gotten any bonus. His final effective skill for Lend Language will be 9, and it will cost him 6 energy to cast and 2 to maintain. Aidan is definitely going to owe him one. Allowing wizards to cast spells at default, while not as cinematic as wildcard magic, substantially increases their flexibility. If the GM is not prepared for a wizard to attempt any spell in his college of choice, he should not allow casting at default.

Some wizardly traditions don’t even use discrete spells. To them, rote and formula are anathema; magic is a creative art that responds to the needs of the moment. These wizards turn their efforts toward mastering fundamental principles of existence instead of learning individual recipes. These fundaments are called Words in the vernacular of wizards. To work magic, wizards bring together these potent principles in much the same way that words are strung together into sentences.

Every spell has two elements: what is done, and what is done to. Correspondingly, there are two types of Words. Some are described as verbs: Create, Move, Heal, and so on. Others are described as nouns: what is being created, moved, etc.

Each Word is a separate IQ/Very Hard skill; mages add their Magery to IQ when learning Words.

There are 10 verbs: Communicate, Heal, Sense, Weaken, Strengthen, Move, Protect, Create, Control, and Transform.

There are 14 nouns: Air, Animal, Body, Death, Earth, Fire, Food, Image, Light, Magic, Mind, Plant, Sound, and Water.

The GM may remove, add, or change Words as he sees fit.

Before casting a syntactic spell, the player describes what he wants the spell to do, and selects the verb and noun that he wants to use. The possible effects are limited only by the player’s imagination. The GM then decides whether the intended effect is possible, whether the Words chosen by the player are appropriate, what type of spell the proposed spell is, how much energy the improvised spell should cost, and what skill penalty (if any) should apply.

If an improvisational wizard attempts to improvise a spell equivalent to an existing memorized spell, feel free to assess parameters similar to the memorized spell. If the proposed spell has no counterpart, however, or if the players and GM prefer not to crack a book in the middle of play, use the following guidelines. The guidelines listed under Inventing New Spells (p. 14) may also be helpful.

The Words for some spells will be obvious; a flight spell, for instance, is clearly Move Body. Some spells, however, could be achieved with multiple different combinations – a spell to fireproof a wooden cart could be Weaken Fire, or it could be Protect Plant. GMs should be flexible in allowing players to utilize their wizards’ strengths, but try not to let the game get bogged down in arguments about the optimum configuration of Words.

As a rule, any attack spell directly assaulting the target uses Body – a spell to break bones would require Weaken Body, but a spell triggering a lethal avalanche could be simply Move Earth. Spells that affect the caster directly use either Body or Mind.

Some spells may require more than one verb or one noun. A laxative spell, for instance, seems to be Move Food on the face of it, but since it affects the body directly, should perhaps be Move Food through Body. Alternately, the player might suggest that it be Heal by Moving Food.

When using more than two Words, the player must roll against the lowest verb and noun skills used, with a -1 penalty for every additional Word. However, he may choose which verb and which noun will determine the energy cost and time to cast. Some casters may wind up introducing their specialties into spells where they are not otherwise necessary in order to benefit from their specialties’ cost or time to cast. A Fire wizard, for example, might want to cast attack spells using Weaken Body with Fire in order to take advantage of Fire’s faster time to cast.

Most syntactic spells are Regular or Area spells, but some Sense-type spells qualify as Information spells. Melee and Missile spells are possible if the GM chooses to allow them. Syntactic magic is too slow for Blocking, and too transient for enchantment. For enchantment using the Words, see Symbol Magic (p. 205).

Each Word has an associated energy cost; a syntactic spell’s cost is equal to the cost of its verb plus the cost of its noun. Control spells cost an amount equal to the cost for Control plus double the cost of the noun; Transform spells cost an amount equal to the cost for Transform plus the cost for both nouns.

The resulting cost is appropriate for a Regular spell cast on a SM 0 target or for the base cost of an Area spell. Syntactic spells do not get a cost reduction for high skill.

As with energy cost, each Word has an associated time to cast; a syntactic spell’s time to cast is equal to the combined time to cast for each of its constituent Words. Time to cast for Control and Transform spells is figured in the same manner as energy cost.

Syntactic spells are typically instantaneous or temporary (see Duration Types, p. 10). Temporary syntactic spells take a standard duration of one minute, one hour, or one day, depending on the nature of the spell. A protective combat spell rarely needs to last longer than a minute, while a spell to go without sleep is pretty useless if it won’t even get you through the night. The GM may increase the energy cost or assess skill penalties for spells that take a longer duration than usual.

Temporary spells can usually be maintained at half the cost to cast.

Not all syntactic spells are created equal. Move Earth can be used to move a rock out of the road or to flip a mountain like a fried egg, and sometimes more obstacles than prohibitive energy cost are called for. GMs should feel free to assess penalties to skill whenever appropriate.

Time to cast and Duration are given in seconds.

Once the parameters of the spell have been agreed upon, the caster makes two rolls: one for the verb, and one for the noun. He makes each roll against his skill in the Word used, minus any penalties assessed by the GM. All usual modifiers for range, touching, concentration, and so on apply to syntactic spells. Use the Alternate Magic Rituals rule on p. 9.

The result of a syntactic spell attempt depends on what rolls were made or failed. If both skill rolls (verb and noun) were made, the spell works. Energy cost is paid normally. If there was a critical success, halve energy cost; if both rolls were critical successes there is no energy cost.

If one word is successful but the other is not, there is a magical result, but it is not the result the caster has in mind. The GM should not be malicious in this — an attempt at a spell to make someone sneeze might flare their nostrils, for example, but probably shouldn’t make them expel Concussions from their sinuses. Energy cost is paid as for the spell that was attempted.

If both rolls are ordinary failures, nothing happens, and the caster must spend one point of energy.

A critical failure on either spell roll has disastrous effects, of course. And critical failure on both should be spectacular!

The wizard always knows if his spell has succeeded or failed. If it has failed, he may not know exactly what the result is, but he knows it’s not going to be the result he was hoping for.

A syntactic Resisted spell uses the worse of the two rolls to determine if the subject resists. The GM determines whether a spell should be Resisted; almost any Body or Mind spell should be, while spells that do direct physical damage generally aren’t Resisted.

The verb Transform is a special case, somewhat more complicated than the other verbs. Unlike every other syntactic spell, Transform spells require three rolls: one for Transform, one for the noun governing the beginning material, and one for the noun governing the final material. If the same Word governs both forms, the spell still requires separate rolls for each. Thus, shapeshifting from human to animal can be considered a Transform Body to Animal spell, and the caster would roll against Transform, Body, and Animal; changing a fig to a thistle, however, would be Transform Plant to Plant, requiring one roll against Transform and two against Plant. Transform spells do not suffer the -1 penalty for using a third Word.

As long as a transformed object remains undamaged, it can (with a new spell or Remove Curse) be restored to its original form, unharmed. If it is damaged, an appropriate amount of damage manifests if its original form is recovered. Dealing with transformed objects requires many judgment calls on the part of the GM. In general, a transformed object behaves in all ways like a natural one, except that transformations cannot be used to gain any significant increase in intelligence or knowledge. (A servant made from a dog will be faithful, but not much smarter than he was before.)

Syntactic spells may be linked, as with any of the linking Meta-Spells (pp. 130-132). If syntactic spells and memorized spells are two means of manipulating the same forces, any of the three linking spells may be attached to a syntactic spell. If syntactic magic stands alone in your game world, then linking spells must be syntactic as well. Such links require the Magic Word and one or more Words related to the triggering event. The more Words are used for the trigger, the more accurate – but the harder to cast – it is.

Keep in mind that if the linking spell works, but the syntactic spell to which it is attached fails partially, something strange will happen when the triggering event occurs.

Syntactic magic can be hard to GM. Its open-ended nature makes it possible for a syntactic wizard to wreak havoc on the campaign; it’s hard for a GM to anticipate what the players may do when they have the complete gamut of magical knowledge at their disposal.

Therefore, it’s essential to set limits. Just because a player can imagine it doesn’t mean that their character ought to be able to do it. On the other hand, it’s no fun to play a wizard if your spells never work – or worse, if they never work right.

Striking an appropriate balance usually means accepting the principle of what a player wants to do while setting reasonable limits. The regular spell system can be a good touchstone for making these sorts of decisions. Is the proposed effect similar in scope to things that can be done with regular spells? What do similar spells cost? Could a wizard using memorized spells achieve a similar effect, having spent a similar number of character points on his magic?

It is almost always more satisfying for a player to be told “Yes, but…” than to be told “No.” Rather than flatly refusing a proposed spell, try something like, “Sure, you can do that. Let’s see, about 15 minutes to cast and 200 energy should be about right for that result. Now if you’d settle for less than totally destroying the castle, I think we can work something out.”

It may take a while for players and GMs to come to a mutual understanding of what sorts of spells are appropriate – patience on all sides is critical. Try to encourage players’ creativity without ruining the game – that’s what it’s all about. And remember to enjoy it when they come up with a particularly clever idea!

Morris the Mage and his friends are preparing to swim across a river. Morris himself knows how to cross without getting wet, but it’s too fatiguing to cast spells on the whole party to get them across dry-shod. However, they are carrying some valuable books that Morris doesn’t want to get wet. So he puts all of the books in a large pile and tries to improvise a Waterproofing spell that will protect the whole heap of material.

The GM and Morris’s player talk it over and decide that there are a number of ways to construct this spell. Protect Plant is one possibility, since books are made from trees. Weaken Water is another, as is Control Water. Morris decides his best chance is with Protect Plant. The pile of books, about a yard across, has a SM of -2, so Morris opts for a Regular spell. The standard guidelines suggest that a Protect Plant spell should cost 2 energy and take 6 seconds to cast. The GM notes that this is about twice the cost of Umbrella, which seems appropriate. If he had tried to use Weaken Water, it would have been quicker to cast, but significantly more expensive. The GM also rules that this spell will only work on inanimate objects, in case a situation arises in the future where Morris claims this spell will keep him from drowning.

Morris’ skill in Protect is 14 and his skill in Plant is 15. He first rolls against 14 for the verb, Protect. He makes his roll, and then rolls against 15 for the noun, Plant. He will pay the whole energy cost unless both rolls fail entirely, or one or both are critical successes.

If the spell succeeds, Morris will know, and the books are waterproofed for the next minute, at least. If one roll succeeds but the other one fails, something else will happen. Morris might not know exactly what, but he will know that it didn’t go exactly as planned – he can choose to try his luck with the river or not, as he sees fit.

The GM must rule what happens if one of the rolls should fail, but only in the case of a critical failure should he be malicious. If the second roll is failed, for example, the spell might only work against oil, not water (which wouldn’t do Morris any good), or only for one second, not one minute, or will protect from dust instead of water, etc. On a critical failure, the ink might start running before the books even get to the water. On a double critical failure, the books might be entirely dehydrated and fall to dust!

Symbol magic is one of the most ancient forms of magic; many cultures have a magical tradition that relies upon a set of signs representing mystically potent words, sounds, or concepts. The Vikings had their Futhark runes; Celtic druids had Ogham; the Hebrew Qabala places great importance on the association of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet with mystic concepts. Chinese, Sanskrit, hieroglyphics… all have been used as symbolic languages of magic.

A properly trained person can use these systems to work magic. This most commonly takes the form of scrolls and items enchanted with powerful glyphs, but the power of magical symbols can be used to create magical effects directly. A symbol-caster is free to learn other forms of magic, if they are available.

To perform any symbol magic, a wizard must learn the Symbol Drawing skill, specializing in a particular symbolic “language.” In addition, he must master each individual symbol before he can use it. Each symbol is a separate IQ-based skill with Symbol Drawing as a prerequisite and no default. Magery does not add to IQ for the purpose of learning symbols.

A wizard experienced in multiple traditions of Symbol Drawing must learn the symbols separately for each symbolic language! Deep knowledge of the Futhark Body-rune avails not a bit when dealing with an Atlantean Body-sigil.

In most symbolic systems, the most common interpretations of the symbols correspond to the Words of the syntactic magic system (see Syntactic Magic, p. 202). In any given inscription, however, a related concept may be a more appropriate translation; the symbol for the verb Weaken might also represent concepts like Reduce, Damage, Harm, Undo, Rot, or Break.

Some symbols are more difficult than others.

IQ/Easy: Food, Sound.

IQ/Average: Communicate, Weaken, Strengthen, Move, Protect, Air, Fire, Image, Light, Plant, Water.

IQ/Hard: Heal, Sense, Create, Control, Transform, Animal, Body, Earth, Magic, Mind, Spirit.

In most settings, the basic meanings of symbols are common knowledge, and anyone can study them freely. The GM may, however, decide to make certain symbols secret or forbidden, requiring quests or extensive research to uncover. Anyone with Symbol Drawing skill may make a skill roll to recognize an unfamiliar symbol within his symbolic language, even if he has never seen it before. Once he has recognized it, he still has no skill in that symbol, but can study it normally.

Interpreting a symbolic inscription to determine exactly what spell it is designed to cast requires a separate Symbol Drawing roll at -3 for each symbol in the inscription. If any of the rolls are failed, the full purpose of the inscription will remain hidden, but the symbols deciphered may hint at some part of the inscription’s intent.

A symbol spell usually consists of two symbols: a verb and a noun. The energy cost of a symbol spell depends on the symbols used and the discretion of the GM, as described for syntactic magic. The duration of a symbol spell depends on the nature of the spell, as with syntactic magic; symbol spells, however, may be lasting in duration. Typically, the duration of a lasting symbol spell is until the symbols are destroyed. The casting time for the spell depends on the chosen casting method (see below).

It is possible to make more complex or detailed spells by using more than two symbols. This always takes longer and is more difficult, if only because the wizard is rolling against more skills. If players want a very powerful effect, the GM may require them to use more than two symbols. If players voluntarily use a multi-symbol spell and succeed, the GM should make it more effective.

Symbols from different languages cannot be used together.

Symbols can be used to cast spells in several ways, including writing on parchment, tracing in the air, inscribing on an object, or using individual symbol tokens. For each symbol used, the caster rolls against the lower of his Symbol Drawing skill and his skill with the particular symbol to see if it is drawn or placed successfully. Doubling the drawing time gives a +1 bonus to skill. Or time may be halved, at a -2 to skill. Using materials that are not traditional to the symbolic alphabet in use may entail a penalty of -1 or worse.

Once symbols have been successfully created or placed, they must be activated with a successful Symbol Drawing roll. Activating a set of symbols takes 1 second for every symbol in the inscription. The caster’s effective skill for this roll is equal to the lowest of his skill in Symbol Drawing and any of the symbols being activated. A critical failure on this roll has the usual critical spell failure results. A symbol-caster cannot activate an inscription if it includes a symbol he does not know. Also note that if the symbols themselves are flawed due to failures in the creation process, a successful activation roll will activate the symbols, flaws and all.

Symbols can be written on parchment or paper to create a temporary magic item. These are faster to make than scrolls (p. 57), but harder to use. Drawing the symbols correctly is important, so a successful skill roll against the lower of the creator’s Artist (Calligraphy) skill level (default if necessary) or the desired symbol’s skill level is needed. The time needed to draw each symbol depends on its complexity: Easy symbols take 1 hour, Average symbols take 3 hours, and Hard symbols take 6 hours.

The person who draws the parchment chooses the desired effect.

A symbol-parchment can be carried and used later. Any damage to the paper will make the symbols useless. To cast the spell, the user looks at the paper and activates the symbols with Symbol Drawing. He then pays the energy cost. The parchment turns to ashes when used. A symbol-caster is at -4 to his Symbol Drawing skill if trying to activate a parchment that he did not draw himself.

A symbol-caster can also trace symbols in earth or sand, at -2 to skill. Times are as for parchment. The symbols can be activated repeatedly while they last (GM’s decision), but of course are not portable!

When two or more symbols are inscribed in a permanent fashion, a magical item is created. It can be activated with Symbol Drawing as many times as necessary. This method is good for swords, staves, doors, etc. Two successful rolls are needed to inscribe each symbol. One is against the caster’s skill level with the symbol to be used. The other is against his skill in working the material – usually Smith or a specialty of Artist.

The time required depends on the desired effect. The wizard is essentially improvising a magic item. The GM decides exactly what effect the item will have, by reference to the item descriptions in Chapters 3 through 26. Carving the symbols will take as much time as it would normally take to enchant the item. If the item must be activated with Symbol Drawing, that time is cut in half. The wizard’s exact intent for the item, and his understanding of the symbols, guides the way he carves, decorates, and interlaces them.

Whole-Language Symbol Magic: Under the normal symbol magic rules, a symbol-caster must learn Symbol Drawing to represent his general familiarity with that symbolic tradition, and then learn each symbol separately to represent his deeper study of each individual mystery. An alternate approach to symbol-casting is to treat each symbol as a Hard technique that defaults to Symbol Drawing. Easy symbols default to skill-4, Average symbols to skill- 6, and Hard symbols to skill-8. This makes symbol-casters substantially more flexible; GMs running this version of symbol magic should consider being conservative with the effects possible with symbols.

Ideogram Symbols: Not all symbolic languages are short and sweet. One could run a setting in which symbol magic is not improvisational; instead, every spell in the standard spell list has its own symbol. Such a system is essentially equivalent to using the regular spell system with the particular constraints of symbol magic; spells would take much longer to cast, but enchantments would become trivial.

Thorfinn, a Futhark runemaster, wants to make a sword that will destroy fire elementals. Discussing the question, he and his mentor (i.e., the player and the GM) determine that the appropriate runes are Hagalaz (Weaken), Kenaz (Fire), and Perthro (Magic).

Thorfinn is a skilled smith, so he plans to work the runes directly into the sword. Some runemasters might prefer to inscribe the runes onto a finished sword using Artist (Calligraphy), but Thorfinn feels that a runemaster who wants to enchant an item ought to make the item himself. Besides, he’s not that good a calligrapher. His Smith skill is 15. His rune skills are Hagalaz-14, Kenaz-15, and Perthro-16. For each rune, he must roll against his skill for the particular rune to formulate it correctly, and then roll against his Smith skill to inscribe it successfully.

All these attempts are successful, and Thorfinn now possesses a runic sword. The time required is determined by the nature of the desired enchantment. In this case, the sword does +2 damage (+2 Puissance — energy cost 1,000), and has +2 to hit (+2 Accuracy — energy cost 1,000). The latter two enchantments are both limited by a Bane spell (fire elementals only). This divides their cost by 3, but it costs 100. The total energy cost is 966, so it would usually take 966 days to complete. This is halved because the item will require Symbol Drawing to activate, so Thorfinn will need about 16 months to finish.

This does not consider the time required to make the sword! However, item manufacturing time and rune-scribing time is concurrent, and it will take Thorfinn less than 16 months to forge a sword, so no time is added.

When Thorfinn wishes to use the sword Flame-Cleaver, he must use Symbol Drawing. This, in itself, requires no energy. His skill at Symbol Drawing is 16. However, one of the runes on Flame-Cleaver is Weaken, which he knows only at level 14, so his effective skill to activate the runes is a 14.

There is no energy cost to use the sword because none of the spells in it require energy. Many magical items require the user to spend energy. This is treated normally. Self-powered items can be made with symbol-magic; the Magic rune must be added to let them draw mana.

To use most items, the user activates the symbols by rolling against the lower of Symbol Drawing and his lowest skill in any of the symbols inscribed on the item, and pays the appropriate energy cost for the desired effect. If the item works, the effect is that chosen by the original maker; the user cannot alter it. If the user does not know exactly what the item does, he must accept that risk! Any symbol-caster may activate a symbol-enchanted item, but only if the symbols are in a symbolic language with which he is familiar.

When a permanently inscribed item is used, a critical failure on an activation roll does 5d damage to the item. This may or may not destroy it.

Some symbol-carved items can be used by anyone. These are governed by the rules for normal enchanted items, and take as long to make as normal enchanted items.

In an emergency, a symbol-caster can trace the symbols in the air with a finger. This does not create a magic item; it simply casts the desired spell. Results are figured exactly as for syntactic magic (see Syntactic Magic, p. 202). A successful skill roll for each symbol used is needed, at a -3 penalty. The wizard needs two seconds to trace an Easy symbol, six seconds for an Average symbol, and 12 seconds for a Hard symbol. When the tracing is complete, the wizard must activate the symbols with Symbol Drawing.

Permanently enchanted symbol tokens can be made as magic items. Each symbol is inscribed on a small object; this is usually a small stone or gem, but may be anything appropriate to the symbolic tradition – chips of wood, shards of bone, clam shells, etc. A symbol-caster can cast spells with them by laying out the required combination of symbols and activating them with Symbol Drawing. This is much faster than drawing the symbols on paper, more reliable than finger tracing, and more flexible than inscriptions. Treat each symbol token as a magic item with a creation cost of 100 for an Easy rune, 300 for Average, 600 for Hard. When making symbol tokens, it is advantageous to use gemstones or other valuable materials. A symbol token with an intrinsic value of $1,000 gives the user a +1 to effective skill. A symbol token with an intrinsic value of $5,000 gives an effective +2. The drawback is that the token shatters if the enchantment roll fails. Properly made symbol tokens will work for anyone who knows Symbol Drawing for the symbolic alphabet used and the appropriate symbols. When casting a spell by symbol tokens, figure energy costs as for syntactic magic. If the stones must be readied quickly, casting time depends on what method the wizard uses to find them. GMs may impose a reality check on this! Few wizards have a complete set, but the more tokens in the bag, the harder it is to find the right one. Wizards in a hurry may grab randomly. In this case, the GM chooses the symbols in any manner desired. Many unusual and humorous spells might be tried in an extreme situation. A wizard can also use “common” symbol tokens (as opposed to true stones). Common symbol tokens are marked with symbols but have no enchantment except the symbol’s intrinsic power. Time to make these is two hours for an Easy symbol, six for an Average one, 12 for a Hard one. If any common stones are used, triple the time required to activate the symbols with Symbol Drawing. There is also a -2 penalty to the Symbol Drawing roll for each common stone used. Symbol tokens can also be used as a method of divination (see SymbolCasting, p. 109).

Fergus, an Irish bard, possesses seven true symbol tokens – short wands carved with Straif (Weaken), Ailm (Create), Getal (Move), Eadha (Mind), Onn (Animal), Fearn (Fire), Ur (Earth), and Saille (Water). While exploring a deserted holding, he is suddenly confronted by a party of hostile Fomorians (giants). As his companions begin to fight, Fergus draws a wand at random from his belt pouch; this takes his first turn. The GM rules that he gets the Move-wand.

For his second turn, he draws another wand. The GM assigns each of the remaining stones a number from 1 to 6, and lets the player roll. He draws the Fire-wand.

Fergus then concentrates on a spell to move the fire from a comrade’s torch into the chief Fomorian’s face. The GM decides this is essentially the same thing as the spell Shape Fire, and uses the parameters of that spell. Because Fergus is working with true symbol tokens, the time to cast is only one second per symbol, or two seconds.

Fergus rolls once against the lowest of his Symbol Drawing, Movewand and Fire-wand skill. The roll is a success, and flame jumps from a torch into the chief’s face, burning and terrifying him. It clings to his face until he flees (Fergus continues to concentrate) and then moves toward another Fomorian. At this point, the GM makes a reaction roll for the Fomorians, and they flee.

Fergus’s energy cost is calculated as per syntactic magic (p. 202). The spell costs 4 energy (the battle did not last long enough for Fergus to maintain the spell) – a relatively low price to pay for deciding a battle!

Perhaps the most famous system of magical symbols is the Futhark runic alphabet, used in one form or another by most of the Germanic peoples of northern Europe. According to the legend, the god Odin discovered the runes when he sacrificed himself to himself, hanging from the branches of Yggdrasill the World-Tree. He learned to use the potent symbols for divination and magic, passing on their power to his priests.

The Futhark is a secular alphabet as well as a magical one; each rune corresponds to a sound, and ordinary language can be written in runic script. Indeed, the name “futhark” derives from the word spelled by the first six letters of the alphabet.

Ogham is a symbol system developed in Ireland around the 4th or 5th centuries, and used throughout the British Isles. The 20 letters of Ogham are formed with a number of horizontal or diagonal strokes across a center line. All surviving inscriptions are in stone, but some have suggested that the alphabet was designed originally for wooden rods. Others believe the alphabet is shorthand for sign language, each letter indicating the number and orientation of the fingers held up.

The historical uses of Ogham are murky; pagan Irish culture did not weather the introduction of Christianity as well as the Norse cultures did, and most of the surviving Ogham inscriptions are short and functional – funeral monuments or border markers. Allusions in ancient texts suggest variously that Ogham may have been, in addition to its uses as a secular alphabet, a secret code language for bards and druids, a tool for divination and other magic practices, and even a system of musical notation for the harp.

Regardless of its historical purpose, however, Ogham is rich with mystical flavor that makes it excellent fodder for gaming. Each Ogham letter is associated with a tree (though the exact trees vary between sources), and these connections link the alphabet to a larger corpus of druidic tree-lore.

An Ogham symbol-token carved of the wood associated with the symbol being carved grants a +1 bonus to casting that symbol.

Because there are only 20 Ogham symbols, some symbols represent more than one Word. Even so, a single inscribed symbol cannot function as two Words. If an inscription needs both meanings of a symbol, the symbol must be inscribed twice.